Lost Maples Before the Fall

Lost Maples Photo by Chase Fountain

Lost Maples State Natural Area covers over 2500 acres of beautiful country in Bandera and Real counties in central Texas. It's just north of Vanderpool on the picturesque Sabinal River.

Each autumn, thousands flock to Lost Maples to admire the beauty of the fall colors in a location many have come to think of as Vermont in Texas. Unfortunately, the extremes of heat and drought this year have taken their toll on the trees at Lost Maples and it looks like the colors this fall may be short lived.

According to the Texas Parks & Wildlife folks...

"This summer's record heat and historic low rain fall has put the trees through their roughest test since weather records have been kept for this area. Due to the extreme heat and dryness this summer we are seeing a change in many of the trees already, about six weeks early. The change is stress related from the heat and dry weather. Many of the black Walnuts are turning yellow and dropping their leaves. Some of the smaller Maples have turned already due to the heat and dry weather. It has been a very rough year for the trees, as we had two storms this summer, one on June 30 and another two weeks later that had small tornados. We lost several very large Red Oaks in these storms, and one huge Cherry tree. Most of the tree varieties are showing some heat stress. Most of the very large Maples seem to be doing well and the ones back on the trails are doing good as they are close to the river and still getting some water."

I visited this beautiful park a few weeks ago and found the Sabinal river to be almost bone dry. I'm hoping to get back there later this month if I can find the time. For now, I'll have to content myself with the few nice shots I took one cloudy morning.

Lost Maples State Natural Area - Vanderpool, Texas
Copyright 2009 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens hand held. The exposure was taken at 24mm, f/10 for 1/80th of a second using a Singh-Ray LB Warming Polarizer at ISO 100 on Lexar Professional digital film. Post capture processing was done in Adobe Lightroom 2. Click on the image above for a larger version.

Posted in Photography Tagged: Canon, Canon 5D Mark II, Landscape Photography, Lost Maples State Natural Area, Photography

Workshop Preparation – The Tripod

As many of you know this fall's Texas Landscape Safari is scheduled for later this month (October 18 - 21, 2009) and I thought I'd help folks get ready by discussing some "tools of the trade" used by every good landscape photographer. So over the next two weeks I'll be posting images of the gear I use along with some shots made possible by this gear. (Honestly, it's just plain fun to "gear geek out" every once in a while)

A set of light-weight, good quality tripod legs is an essential tool in any landscape photographer's rig. A tripod is the most important accessory a serious amateur photographer will invest in and one which should be chosen with great care. A good tripod can make the difference between a shot that "looks" tack sharp on the camera's LCD and one that "is" tack sharp when printed at 24 36 . Remember, the number one cause of soft images isn't poor focus, it's camera movement.

Good quality tripod legs are not cheap and you can expect to pay somewhere between $400 - $800 (USD) depending upon the materials of construction, size and weight.

My favorite set of tripod legs are Gitzo's GT1541T Traveller. They are made from carbon fiber and are very light-weight (2.1 lbs) but extremely strong and durable. They fold up to only 16 in length, making them very easy to carry in a backpack but will support up to 17 lbs of camera and lens, which is just about any lens of 300mm or less with my Canon 5D Mark II body.

I'm an unabashed believer in Gitzo tripods (probably the only French product I've ever bought) and highly recommend them to any photographer. My set of Traveller legs has seen the extremes of heat, humidity, mud, sand, gravel and just plain dirt and they work as well now as the first day I bought them.

At $575 (USD) they're not cheap but they're light-weight, compact and durable as hell. You may buy four or five cameras over your lifetime as a landscape photographer but you'll only need one Gitzo tripod!

Posted in Photography Tagged: Gitzo Traveller Tripod, Gitzo Tripods

Landscape Photography – The View from the Top

Here's a shot taken earlier this week during the Texas Landscape Safari at Enchanted Rock State Natural Area near Fredericksburg, Texas. Enchanted Rock is a huge granite dome that rises 425 feet above the ground, or about 1800 feet above sea level. This incredibly huge "batholith" (Google it) covers 640 acres making it one of the largest rock formations uncovered by erosion in the United States. And yes, the climb to the top is as steep as it looks but well worth the effort!

Early Morning Climb - Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, Texas
Copyright 2009 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens tripod-mounted. The exposure was taken at 28mm, f/13 for 1/15th of a second using a Singh-Ray warming polarizer and 4-stop graduated neutral density filter at ISO 100 on Lexar Professional digital film. Post capture processing was done in Adobe's Lightroom 2. Click on the image above for a larger version.

Posted in Photography Tagged: Canon, Canon 5D Mark II, Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, Landscape Photography, Photography

New WordPress Theme for Mobile Visitors

WordPress has launched another great theme designed for readers accessing Serious Amateur Photography with an iPhone or iPod Touch. Now mobile visitors will be greeted by the updated WPtouch theme offering easy access to posts, pages, and archives. They'll also get fancy AJAX commenting and post loading.

When mobile visitors click on a post they be able to view the entire post and the images exactly as I've uploaded them. Folks using Safari can give this a try on their iMacs or MacBooks by changing the User Agent setting under the Develop menu to Mobile Safari 3.0.

Posted in Photography Tagged: Serious Amateur Photography, WordPress

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Lenses and Seeing

The lens is the 'eye' of the camera. The selected focal length and aperture determine the look of the photo. The lens you are using may also have other characteristics that contribute to the look.

These influence your approach to composition. The idea is to work with the visual characteristics of the lens you are using rather than fight against them. Ask yourself how you can get the best out of the lens you are using.

To start, you will need to understand why a telephoto lens is different from a wide-angle, and how depth-of-field is affected by aperture choice and focal length.

Let's look at some examples taken with lenses that I have owned:

Sigma 50-150mm f2.8 lens

I created this image by setting the focal length of the lens to 150mm and the aperture to f2.8. I focused on the grass in the foreground to throw the setting sun out of focus. By the way, I didn't look through the viewfinder at the setting sun. That's potentially dangerous. I used Live View to compose the image instead.

This is how the lens and aperture choice affected the photo:

Narrow depth-of-field: The combination of wide aperture, long focal length and close focusing means the depth-of-field is extremely shallow. Anything other than the blade of grass I focused on is out of focus, including the setting sun.

Compression: The long focal length appears to compress perspective, making the sun look bigger and closer to the foreground than it really is.

Narrow field-of-view: The telephoto lens has a narrow field-of-view and captures just part of the subject. This focal length is good for capturing detail, but not for including the entire scene.

Canon 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens

I set the focal length of the lens to 18mm, its widest setting, and the aperture to f11 when I made this image. These are the effects:

Depth-of-field: The small aperture was required because of the bright sun, but it also ensures that the entire scene is in focus. Every detail has been captured by the camera.

Perspective: I was drawn to this scene by the holes cut in the salt, and the lines created as they disappear into the distance towards the mountains. The focal length emphasises the lines and pushes the horizon into the distance, making it seem further away than it really is.

Wide field-of-view: The 18mm focal length has a wide field-of-view, which enabled me to capture the entire scene.

In many ways the focal lengths used to create the photos above are opposites. The telephoto lens brings the subject closer. Only part of the scene is in focus thanks to the wide aperture.

The wide-angle end of the kit lens, on the other hand, captures the entire scene and creates a sense of space by making the horizon seem further away that it really is. A narrow aperture ensures everything is in focus.

Canon 85mm f1.8 lens

Here's a portrait taken with another of my favourite lens, an 85mm prime set to f2.8:

Depth-of-field: My model is in focus, and so is part of the background. There is more depth-of-field than there is in the photo taken with the 50-150mm lens set to 150mm. And there is less than in the photo taken with the wide-angle lens.

Perspective: The 85mm lens is a short telephoto lens and it records perspective accordingly. Again, it falls somewhere in-between the 150mm and 18mm focal lengths. Like the telephoto lens the 85mm lens is good for capturing details. You cannot capture as much of the scene as you can with a wide-angle.

Holga lens

Finally, I'd like to show you a photo taken with a Holga lens. You can buy these plastic lenses for digital cameras from Holga Direct. This really is a good example of how the lens determines the look of the photo:

Holga lenses have the following characteristics:

Lack of sharpness: A Holga lens is made from plastic and is not intended to give a good quality image.

Vignetting: Photos taken with this lens are characterised by heavy vignetting at the edges.

Conclusion

Hopefully the examples in this article have drawn your attention to how the focal length of the lens you are using and the aperture affect the look of the photo. The lens is the camera's eye, and the characteristics of the focal lens you choose determine the look of the photo. With practise, you will learn to make the best use of your lenses.

Mastering Photography

My latest ebook, Mastering Photography: A Beginner's Guide to Using Digital Cameras introduces you to digital photography and helps you make the most out of your digital camera. It covers concepts such as lighting and composition as well as the camera settings you need to master to take creative photos like the ones in this article.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

Lenses and Seeing